Interface's Odyssey
by The Ikran Rider
Summary: At long last, the lost Guardian, Bob, has finally reunited with the heroes being tormented in the Web. With the bounty hunter and Akari's missing Pokémon in tow, she reveals the mystery behind their misadventures before they came across the doomed Saucy Mare. And so the long-awaited answers are about to be unveiled!


**A/N: For the longest time, I have been wanting to solve the mystery on what happened to Bob in the Web. I've been trying to come up with a solution for years, until I finally got it by comparing ReBoot to Metroid; they seem to have some things in common. You'll see.**

"Akari! Stop! Mewtwo can destroy us all!"

There was a stern female voice that sounded very familiar, yet so distant. The Trainer and her allies were being hammered down by the ravenous Web Riders. During their hopeless quest to search for Bob and the baby creature that took AndrAIa's code, they ran into an invasion. One of the Riders went through the rip of the shield made out of decaying carcasses. And just recently, Captain Capacitor came to the conclusion that most of the army consisted of degraded Sprites.

It was hard to communicate with their dial-up speech and all they wanted was to dominate their territory and delete anyone who got in their way. With little hope left, Mewtwo went into a berserker rage, destroying every one of the zombie-like beings in sight, as well as portions of the Saucy Mare..! Until a certain someone held onto Akari's shoulder. It was a woman wearing a dark fuchsia space suit, red helmet, and a large green, see-through visor. Through the translucent glass, Akari noticed it was her long, lost friend, Samus Aran!

Upon hearing her cry, Mewtwo gradually calmed and beheld the sight of the bounty hunter and her large goldenrod gunship. "Samus..? What're you doing here..?" The Genetic Pokémon was just as startled as Akari and her companions were. Even some of the Pokémon that fell during battle. They saw a masked stranger meet Matrix, then take away his Keytool and he put it on his left arm. Next they heard a groan coming from a round Binome who was Capacitor's sidekick.

"Unh...it's AndrAIa... Please somebody help her. I can give...no more..."

"AndrAIa?" Samus perked up and immediately led the surviving group below decks.

Just then, Frisket was awaiting them as a snarling guard dog. The mysterious Rider recognized him right away as he gave a greeting in dial-up. The canine hesitated for a nano before he bared his teeth again; both he and Samus just shrugged it off. It seemed like time was moving slowly when he got to work on restoring the half-dead Game Sprite. One of the most shocking things was that the rebel unveiled a gold and black icon from his chest that was encased with the same vile, dark skin. He then took it off, picked AndrAIa's icon, and they both reacted by transferring a blue light from one to the other. He inserted his into the machine and with a single surge of pressure, her body returned to her normal shading.

When she awakened, she muttered, "Unh.. Uh, Bob... We found you."

Everyone was in complete shock and denial. How in the hell did she even know that it was the exiled Guardian they were looking for!? As if reading her mind, the stranger inflated his mask and began to take it off. They all gasped and covered their eyes, until he revealed his pale, amethyst skin and his familiar locks of his long, dark silvery hair. He faced the crew with a grin and replied, "You just can't talk in these things."

Everyone, excepting Akari, was gleeful to see their friend alive and well. Instead, she just stood up and demanded on what in the deep reaches of the freaking Web is going on here!

She was almost in hysterics, especially when she faced Samus who was trying to reassure her. "You've got some explaining to do, Samus! Since the so-called Guardian wouldn't!"

The bounty hunter raised her hands, "Easy, Akari. Calm down. I'll explain everything..."

She went back to the day when she first entered Mainframe and abducted the software pirates. Since she was done with a mission involving the invasion at Zebes by the space pirates and before she met the baby Metroid in SR388, she was free to help. Because she despised pirates of all kinds, she was kind of the offer. It was then that she decided to investigate the System as it was being assaulted by the war of the Web Creatures. When the hatchling was safe at the Ceres Space Colony she stopped by, only to find Bob in the viral missile he was encased in. It was a good thing she was able to have Chansey transferred to her loading dock as they were nursing the Guardian back to health. Samus said that exposure to the Web is deadly, degrading someone's code and vitals with very little air and atmosphere, and toxic pollution. They could eventually devolve and lose themselves completely as they'll become soulless Web Riders if she didn't act so quickly.

It was just soon after that they lost access to Mainframe and got a distress signal emanating from the laboratory, "The Ceres Space Station is under attack!" As she was caring for Bob, she raced through the asteroid field, met her old nemesis, Ridley, who took the hapless baby Metroid, had the station self-destruct, and chased him to Zebes once more.

It was thanks to Bob and Akari's variety of Pokémon that made the expedition sort of successful. While the Guardian was acting more like a novice Trainer, Samus was able to hunt down and defeat Ridley and Mother Brain, the highest ranks in the space pirates, and have their secret hideout in Zebes finally obliterated into space dust. But at a price, the sacrifice of the baby Metroid. It grew exponentially as it used multiple soldiers as sustenance and broke free from its small prison in Norfair. It was claimed as the Super Metroid and it recognized Samus and her friends before soaring off; it actually felt guilty when it latched onto her and drained nearly all of her energy. Then at Tourian, the research lab and the pirates' main headquarters, Samus and her team combated Mother Brain. It was a one-sided fight as neither of them stood a chance against the abomination's paralyzing, fatal energy blast! Suddenly, the last Metroid came to their rescue and struck back as it latched onto her again.

Then, one of the most startling things transpired. The jellyfish-like organism attached itself onto Samus and actually shed its energy, restoring her and her friends back to normal. Only to act as bait when Mother Brain recovered and destroyed it. Deep in her own rage, Samus received its remaining code and noticed her beam changing into the same rainbow-like Hyper Beam, mercilessly deleting Mother Brain in the process.

Before Samus came to the Zebesian Command Center, she noticed there were some imprisoned Web Riders in Ridley's Hideout in Norfair who never wished to harm her nor her teammates. According to their translated language, they've stated that most of their kind have turned into rogue abominations who were hell-bent on dividing and rendering. Akari and the others noticed it was the same function as the Guardians that worked for the super virus, Daemon. Although Samus and Bob were shocked at the thought, she said that a similar fate happened to them as well. They were the only ones who escaped the spread, only they were captured by the space pirates just before the infant Metroid. Space pirates had no affiliations with Web Riders; in fact, they were met with hate and considered pests, as they constantly interfered with their agendas and conquests. The prisoners also stated that Web Creatures have been misunderstood and prejudiced as monsters, the same went with the Metroids just after the baby's heroic deed, protecting Samus like she was its own mom. It was demonstrated to give code, rather than just stealing it.

Since then, the untainted Web Riders volunteered to search for their remaining friends in the Web, until they came across the Saucy Mare which looked completely different from before. Instead of an open pirate ship, it was coated by decaying opaque hides and scales. They saw it get attacked by the rebel gangs, and Samus at first felt joyful while the escaped convicts were suffering; however, upon a closer observation, she noticed her allies were also trapped in the conflict. And so, she used her advanced Hyper Beam and shot the remaining Riders into oblivion, much to Bob's dismay. Although the others barely noticed in the heat of battle.

Samus also unveiled that thanks to the upgrades she found for her equipment and weaponry, she transformed and became more adaptable to the environment. And she was glad that the docile Web Riders, or the surviving degraded Sprites, had offered to give Bob a shielding of their own while still keeping the remainder of his code intact. He did lose about a quarter of it when Samus and the Pokémon nurtured him, which explained the change in his voice, outlook, and attire. They also decided to give Bob the alias, Interface, to prevent detection and protect the remainder of his code from the Riders, Guardians, and the treacherous supervirus working behind the scenes.

She concluded that she was about to drop off the Etecoons and the Dachoras she found, since her ship was being overloaded with passengers, until she observed the commotion. For now, she and Ray Tracer will assist the crew reach Mainframe which lost its IP address thanks to Mouse as a way to prevent the System from being vulnerable to threats from the Web. There couldn't have been a better time, with the Saucy Mare's poor condition from the constant onslaughts. She then bid the guys farewell before she boarded her ship and performed her duty as an escort. Akari, Matrix, Bob, and company couldn't possibly get any more hopeful than they are now.

 **A/N: Phew, glad that's out of the way. I wish the developers would've given a proper story on how Bob was able to survive the Web and meet up as Interface with the lesser aggressive Riders. I could never find any revelation about it; they could've made this a lost episode if Rainmaker had the mind to it! Damn them and their wasted potential! So, like "Ryu's Immigration," I've tried to unveil as much as I could, and give some closure.**

 **Ever since I first saw the finale of Season 2, I was desperate to find answers. At that time, I came across Super Metroid and later the original Smash Bros. I remembered it took me several gruesome days to finally see Bob in one piece again, and I was a little miffed that he was one of the infected cronies all along. I could never understand as to why he turned, nor how the more docile Riders came to be. For years, I wanted to find a conclusion, but I had no such luck and I decided to compare it to Metroid. As explained by Samus, both that and ReBoot tend to have a few things in common; albeit the Metroid series was created well before ReBoot. Perhaps it was an inspiration..? Unfortunately, we'll never know, nor find the answers as to how Bob dealt with the Web before reuniting. Various pieces from the Super Metroid soundtrack can be heard here.**

 **So, the drabble is complete. Although God only knows what's going to happen next. Hopefully I'll get the next Missing Episode of Sleepy Hollow done by then.**


End file.
